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To the editor:

It is unfortunate and a disservice to the members of Community Board 2 (CB2) and your readers that you were so ill prepared to write the editorial, “Neil Sloane/ CB2 blows it bigtime,” that appeared in the Feb. 7 edition of The Brooklyn Papers. Your fact-less and irresponsible reporting further adds to the misinformation disseminated by other ill-informed individuals.

Not withstanding your football metaphor, each board member is responsible for his or her own respective vote on this and every other issue that is brought to the full board of Community Board 2 for vote. All community board members were well aware of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan and its importance on setting the directional future for Downtown Brooklyn, the entire borough and indeed, the entire city.

Community Board 2’s game plan for the Downtown Brooklyn Plan (DBP) began in November 2002 with the first of TWENTY MEETINGS relating to the DBP. To the credit of the city agencies, representatives of the Department of City Planning, Economic Development Corporation and Housing Preservation and Development, as well as representatives from the Downtown Brooklyn Council were always on hand to answer questions and deliver presentations whenever requested. These meetings and/or presentations were all informative and delivered to community board committee chairpersons, community board members and community-based organizations in many different forums. Attached to this letter is a list of these meetings (I am sure I have omitted a few).

The Downtown Brooklyn Plan Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) was certified on Dec. 3, 2003 and received at the community board office on Dec. 5. Community board comment was due Feb. 9, 2004. All Board members were encouraged to attend the many committee meetings and the public hearing at which representatives from EDC and City Planning were present to hear community concerns.

Each committee met over the last two months under stringent timelines in order to evaluate the Downtown Brooklyn Plan and to come up with recommendations to the Land Use committee.

It is the Land Use committee’s responsibility to submit ULURP land use recommendations to the full board. Many of the concerns raised by the committees were considered helpful builds to the Downtown Brooklyn Plan and were addressed accordingly in follow up correspondence from the involved city agencies.

At the public hearing some of our local elected representatives commented on their dissatisfaction with the plan and urged the community board to vote against the plan in its entirety. Clearly, that recommendation does come with substantial impact.

There were board members for whom those recommendations weighed heavily. Add to that the substantial opposition from the community, albeit some based on misinformation, and the equivocation of the board vote becomes more obvious.

The vote of the board does not negate the many positive recommendations made by the committees. Most reasonable people would agree that this plan, if implemented, must proceed while strongly considering these recommendations.

What is interesting is that you define the many components that will ultimately determine whether the Downtown Brooklyn Plan will come to fruition. Those individuals and agencies responsible for implementation must incorporate the concerns of the community and the recommendations made by the board if the implementation is to be successful.

While the outcome of the CB2 vote did not proceed as was preferred by many, our voices have been heard. And will not be discounted!

In regards to your comments related to Mr. Diamondstone’s proposal, if you were at the meeting you would know that I actually helped Mr. Diamondstone in his attempt to make his motion by informing him that he was seeking a motion to divide to which his response was “yes” and he returned to his seat. In Mr. Diamondstone’s motion he did not specify how the division was to take place!

Although others from your paper have attended some of the meetings sponsored by the community board I don’t recall that you were present and if you were how your reporting on this project could be so erroneous. You might consider reading the Brooklyn Heights Courier’s Feb. 9 cover story on this issue.

Your apology to this board is anticipated.

—Shirley Ann McRae, Chairperson, CB2

©2004 The Brooklyn Paper